The Shameless

This year’s Cannes Film Festival has showcased a number of films exploring the difficulties of being gay in highly conservative societies. While Emanuel Parvu’s Three Kilometres to the End of the World took us to sombre rural Romania, Bulgarian director Konstantin Bojanov‘s The Shameless transports us to vibrant India.

It follows a same-sex relationship between “Renuka” (Anasuya Sengupta), a sex worker, and a young woman, Devika (Omara Shetty), who is destined for the same fate. Devika’s mother (Auroshika Dey) has condemned her to become a devadasi, a religiously divined caste whose virginity will be sold to the highest bidder.

Renuka, a Muslim woman who has taken on the name of a Hindu goddess in a bid to mask a past that means she is perennially on the run from the police, is cold and cool. It’s a persona that attracts both well-to-do clients and Devika, a wannabe rapper.

Initially, the age gap between the pair feels vaguely unethical – one wonders whether, despite the attraction, should Renuka be drawing someone so naive into her troubled life? – yet as the horrors Devika might be subjected to become clear, their relationship makes more sense.

There is also an undercurrent that delves into India’s latter-day fraught politics and the results of corrupt nationalism – with one of Renuka’s clients being a Hindu Nationalist politician (Rohit Kokate) for whom she is a dark secret.

What drives the film along is the contrasting, and outstanding, performances from its two leads: Sengupta as the strong hooker with a heart of steel rather than gold. A woman who has learned that the world and her clients will punch her in the gut, but to punch back. Shetty as a young woman rendered girlish and unable to explore her womanhood due to the despicable fate her family has chosen for her.

In its final act, it becomes something of a lovelorn thriller, as we wonder whether the two women will overcome the awful (often sweaty male) obstacles in their path to being together.

The Shameless isn’t for everyone, there are elements to it that don’t easily culturally translate and enable us to understand its characters’ motivations. Yet that perhaps makes it all the more important Bojanov has chosen to highlight the struggle the real-life counterparts of these women face with an unusual love story that is compellingly played out by its two leads.

Mark Worgan

The Shameless does not have a UK release date yet.

Read more reviews from our Cannes Film Festival 2024 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Cannes Film Festival website here.

Watch the trailer for The Shameless here: